As a network of communication between a person and an object and communication between objects, Internet of Things (IoT) is an important part of new-generation information technologies.
In the IoT, to obtain information from the physical world or control an object in the physical world, massive IoT terminals need to be widely deployed. The IoT terminals are various devices that have sensing, computing, execution, and communication capabilities. Further, information transmission, information coordination, and information processing are implemented by using a network.
The extensive and wide deployment of IoT terminals requires relatively low costs, relatively low complexity, and extremely low power consumption of an IoT terminal. To reduce power consumption and costs, an IoT terminal usually uses a channel bandwidth of only 1 to 2 MHz for communication, which is much less than a channel bandwidth used by a wireless local area network (WLAN) device such as a station (STA). WLAN standards include gradually evolved releases such as 802.11a. 802.11n, and 802.11ac. Currently, the IEEE 802.11 standards organization has started standardization work of a new-generation WLAN standard 802.11ax, which is referred to as a high efficiency wireless local area network (HEW). A WLAN device supporting 802.11ax uses a channel bandwidth of at least 20 MHz. Therefore, generally, an IoT terminal cannot directly receive or send a WLAN signal, that is, a WLAN network side device such as an access point (AP) cannot schedule or coordinate IoT communication. Consequently, in a current communications network, a conflict inevitably occurs between IoT terminals and between an IoT terminal and a WLAN device.